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00:06Daniel Radcliffe is world famous as Harry Potter, star of the eight-part blockbuster
00:12movie series. And after numerous acclaimed film, TV and stage roles, he's one of the
00:20most popular and recognisable actors on the planet. Daniel's own childhood was nothing
00:26like the orphaned wizard boy he played in Harry Potter. He was brought up by his mum
00:31and dad in West London.
00:33We're a very, like, tight-knit kind of unit as a family. My mum was a casting director
00:41and my dad was a literary agent after they finished their acting careers. So, you know,
00:46plays and theatre was very much a part of growing up. But they never, they definitely
00:51didn't, like, want me to become an actor.
00:55The reason I ended up going for an audition for something in the first place was just
00:58because, like, I was really not great at school. I think I felt very, sort of, mediocre.
01:04When I got the Potter films, it changed the whole family's life, really.
01:13Daniel was just 11 when he was catapulted to fame as Harry Potter. Over the next ten years,
01:19he grew up alongside the fictional hero he played, becoming an icon for the generation
01:25who grew up watching him.
01:29When I look back now, to get a kid through what happened to us with as much humour and
01:35karma as my parents did is very, you know, I think very impressive. I have realised, you know,
01:43how little I know about my family.
01:47As far as I know, on my dad's side, there were four brothers who sort of, I think,
01:51all fought in the First World War.
01:54On my mum's side, my great-grandmother was Ray, and it was English, but of Eastern European
02:02Jewish extraction, I think.
02:05Actually, I'm not sure I can even remember the name of my great-grandfather on that side.
02:10I don't want to say Phil, but that's not right. See, this is what I mean. This is very embarrassing.
02:16I know that he ran a jewellery shop, and then there was, like, a robbery.
02:21Then I think he took his own life. So, yeah, that's the little bit that I know about the family.
02:30If I can find out anything about other people in our ancestry, and if there are any parts
02:38of them that I feel are echoed in either me or in my parents, I think that's what I'm
02:45going to find the most, sort of, exciting.
03:24So, this is, this is a note from my mum. Hi, Dan. Here are a few things I'd like to
03:29dug out to get you started. Granny Pat's photo album, and the family tree she drew just before
03:35you were born. You're the bump. Loads of love, mummy.
03:43This is a photo of my great-grandmother, Ray, with my mum's mum, Granny Pat, who has just got a...
03:54It looks like somebody's put a punk into a Victorian child's dress, because she's just
04:01got this baby mohawk. You really can tell that it's Granny Pat. And assume that is Ray and my
04:10grandmother again. That's a very nice photo of Ray. She's smiling in that one. I remember,
04:17certainly towards the end of her life, she lived with my mum and grandmother, and they
04:22all lived together.
04:24All right.
04:27Oh, wow. Granny Pat. She has, um, she has, in a very dramatic way, has titled this the Gershon
04:38Dynasty, which is, you know, maybe putting it a bit strongly. Okay. So yeah, there's, there's
04:47me, bump. And then Alan and Marcia, my parents. And then the previous generation was Pat, Pat
04:58Gresham. That is an anglicised version of the much more Jewish name Gershon. Maybe it was
05:05just my grandmother's decision to change her name, but I wonder when that switch happened.
05:10And then going back to just one generation, we get Ray Jacobs, my great grandmother, who
05:20married Sam, Samuel. He took his own life, who apparently was one of nine children. And he
05:35thought, wow, he was the first one to be born in England, which is definitely a surprise.
05:43All these nine children are the children of Jesse Greenwell and Lewis Gershon, my great,
05:52great grandparents. But it says Jesse Greenwell married Lewis Gershon brackets in South Africa.
05:57I had always assumed that going back that far, we would be from Eastern Europe. But this family
06:05tree very clearly says South Africa. So this was made 30 years ago, and anyone underlined
06:13in red was still alive at the time. Still here, not dead yet. So there's probably some living
06:21relatives who could help out.
06:30Daniel's in North London, on his way to meet a descendant of his great, great grandparents,
06:35Jesse Greenwell and Louis Gershon, who's also called Louis Gershon.
06:41I'm just fascinated by the fact that I have a relative that I didn't know existed. Hopefully,
06:47modern day Louis Gershon will have a lot more information about the family and maybe what
06:54the full story is about South Africa.
07:04Hi, Daniel, Louis Gershon. Hello, Louis. Come in. Thank you very much.
07:09Did you know that we were related? Absolutely not.
07:12All right. So I have been given this family tree, which was drawn up by my grandmother.
07:18So, Louis, if I can ask, where do you fit in on all this tree? Right. So, my dad,
07:23it was the youngest of the nine siblings. Bobby married Hannah, and they had one son, who
07:30was nameless, but it's me. It's you. Yeah. Louis Gershon. My grandmother would have been
07:35your first cousin. Yeah. So, what do you know about your grandfather, my great-great-grandfather,
07:42Louis Gershon? Right. Well, what was in my flat where I grew up all my life was a picture
07:48of Louis Gershon. And I'm now going to show you Louis Gershon. Wow.
07:55Now, if you look at Louis Gershon and you look at Daniel Ratcliffe. Yeah.
07:59There is not much difference. That's a Gershon face. It's not a million miles away.
08:02You look more like him than I do, and I'm named after him. Look at you. It's the same bloody
08:08face.
08:08Yeah. I just need to shave the rest of it off. You need to tidy up a bit. Yeah, really.
08:12You're all right. But look at that. And look, it's amazing. That's incredible. Sorry,
08:16let me just have another. I mean, around the eyes and the eyebrows. That's where I get them
08:22from. That's really remarkable. Is there anything else you can tell me about Louis? Because
08:31I, I, on the tree, all I know is that he met or married Jesse Greenwall in South Africa. It
08:39says,
08:40but that's, that is all I know. Right. There is a census in the, in the early 1900s, which you
08:45must
08:45have a look at. Okay. It's 1901. Hackney. Although it was Hackney, it was probably a bit more
08:52Stamford Hill, which was quite posh in those days. Oh, right. Okay. Wow. There is one very interesting
08:56thing here. If you look where people were born, where everyone was born here. And then
09:01Louis is, huh? Yeah. So apparently Louis Gershwin was born in Germany. I had it in my history
09:12that we were from Russia and obviously, and then it says Jesse, Louis's wife was born in
09:17Russia. Correct. Wow. And then look down. They had children. John was born in Cape Town. So
09:26Anne was born in Kimberley. And then Julie was born in Orange. In the orange tree state.
09:31Orange. What was their activity out there in South Africa? Well, he was something in diamonds
09:36and that's what, that's what was going on there in South Africa. Okay. Wow.
09:44Daniel's great, great grandfather, Louis Gershon, was one of thousands of treasure hunters who
09:49flooded into the area around Kimberley, South Africa in the late 1800s, after diamonds were
09:55discovered there. By the time of the 1901 census, Louis and his family had moved to London.
10:03Then there he is, Samuel. Samuel. That's my great granddad, Samuel. Aged as of last birthday.
10:11Seven. Yeah. Seven. First boy in the UK. So yeah, Cape Town, Kimberley, Orange Free State, Hackney.
10:17Wow. By this point, from years working in diamonds in South Africa, Louis Gershon, then came back and
10:25became a dealer in jewellery. You can just about see it say there. Employer, worker or own account?
10:31Own account. Thank you very much. He owns his own business. Right. Do you know anything more about the business?
10:37Set up in Hatton Garden. I think you should really have to take a trip to Hatton Garden to find
10:42out what's going on.
10:43I think that, yeah, I think that sounds like a good idea.
10:49In London's city centre, Hatton Garden is the historic home of the jewellery trade.
10:55When I think about the life that Louis Gershon must have had, I mean, if you went from Germany to
11:00South Africa,
11:01then to Upsticks again and moved to London and set up in the jewellery business, there's a huge element of
11:07risk in that.
11:08I'd always had some awareness of a jewellery link in our family. I'd love to know more about that.
11:16Just off the main street, Daniel's meeting Hatton Garden historian and author Rachel Lichtenstein.
11:23Hi, Daniel. Lovely to meet you. Lovely to meet you, Rachel.
11:26By the kind of turn of the century, all the world's rough diamonds were coming here to Hatton Garden.
11:32So I've got a document here to show you, and this is dated 1905.
11:37Oh, right. And you can see here diamond cutters, setters and workers.
11:42Oh. And see if you can find your family name.
11:46There's, yeah, Gershon and Shire.
11:49So Gershon and Shire were then based at 35 Hatton Garden, and they would have been working in a little
11:56workshop,
11:56much like the one that we're going to visit here.
12:00Daniel's meeting diamond-mounter Stuart Rucker.
12:03Daniel, come through.
12:04OK. These are just a few things that I've been working on.
12:09Wow. Has the technique for this changed much in the last hundred years since the great-great-grandad was doing
12:16it?
12:16A lot of it is very similar.
12:18This is what he would have done, sort of traditional hand-making with, you know, tools, filing, shaping with hammers.
12:25It's amazing the delicacy of what you produce with hammers and, you know, files.
12:29It's mini-engineering, really.
12:33Oh, wow. That's beautiful.
12:35So, Daniel, we've got some more documents here that tell you about Louis Gershon in Hatton Garden in the industry.
12:441817, June 19th. A copy of register of directors or managers of the African wholesale jewellers.
12:53He's realised that if you start to import goods from elsewhere that are already made up, he can make a
12:59larger profit.
13:00Oh, right. Clever Louis.
13:02Yeah. If you have a look...
13:05Oh, right, yeah.
13:06...at how much the company is worth...
13:08OK.
13:08...by that time...
13:09That's £10,000.
13:11...which is...
13:11£10,000, which is about equivalent to about half a million pounds...
13:16Oh, wow.
13:17...in today's money. So, he's doing really, really well.
13:19Yeah, he is.
13:20I was wondering, yeah, do you know anything about the further involvement of my great-grandfather, Sam?
13:25If we move on to this document here...
13:29And then here we have my great-grandad, Samuel, who is 17, jeweller's apprentice.
13:39So, just have a look at the next document.
13:42Oh, wow.
13:44Certified copy of an entry of marriage.
13:47Samuel Gershon, aged 27 years.
13:51Yes.
13:51Diamond Merchant.
13:52There you go.
13:53He had progressed.
13:54Wow.
13:55Oh, he married Rachel Diner, known as Ray.
14:01I never knew her name was Rachel.
14:03It always has been Ray.
14:05St. Vincent's Road, Southend-on-Sea.
14:08And...
14:08Oh, and that's interesting as well.
14:10So, this is...
14:10What year is this?
14:111921.
14:12By this point, Louis Gershon is now deceased.
14:17Yeah.
14:18That's sad.
14:20Well, this is...
14:21This is amazing, and I'm...
14:24Yeah.
14:24So, I suppose if I want to know more, I should probably go to Southend.
14:29I think so.
14:35I know what a point of pride the business must have been, because it was a business that had
14:39been really successful.
14:42Having seen on that last document that they ended up in Southend, I'm intrigued to know
14:48more about my great-grandmother and great-grandfather, Sam.
14:55In Southend, Daniel's meeting historian Alan Dean.
14:59Alan, lovely to meet you.
15:00Really good to meet you, too.
15:01Thank you so much for coming.
15:02I've got some photographs, studio photographs, taken in Southend of Sam and Ray.
15:09Whoa!
15:10They were taken in the late 1920s.
15:13Okay.
15:14I've seen more photos of Ray, none of her at this age.
15:18But I've never...
15:19I don't remember ever seeing just a good close front-on shot of Samuel.
15:24That's amazing.
15:25It's funny to think I'm the same age as he is in this photo.
15:28Yeah.
15:28I do feel like a pipe probably does put a few years on you.
15:33So, yeah, do you know...
15:34Do you know why Samuel ended up coming out here?
15:37Well, your great-grandmother, Ray, her family were already here.
15:40So, the Jacobs came first and then the Gershens?
15:43Absolutely.
15:43Okay.
15:45A year after getting married, in May 1922, Samuel and Ray had their first daughter, Patricia.
15:53Seven years later, they had another daughter, Luella.
15:59Actually, hold on.
16:00My handy travel-sized family photo album.
16:05I think...
16:06Right, I've got...
16:06There we go.
16:07So, this picture, which must have been taken right after my grandmother was born, would
16:12have been taken here in Southend somewhere.
16:14Yeah, that's Athol Lodge.
16:15See, I assumed because of the word Lodge, I assumed it was a hotel or something they were staying at,
16:21but they were living there permanently, were they?
16:24That's why people wanted to move here.
16:26The grand homes.
16:27Space, yeah.
16:27The trees outside.
16:28And, of course, the seafront.
16:31Do you know how anything about the business was still going at that point?
16:35Yes.
16:36Sure.
16:36I've got a page from Kelly's post office directory here.
16:40Correct.
16:40And if you find Hatton Garden...
16:4522, there we go.
16:47Ah, now, yes, Gershon Brothers, manufacturing jewellers.
16:51That's interesting.
16:52So, when is this from?
16:531930.
16:55So, your great-grandfather...
16:58Yes.
16:58...was now in business with his brother...
17:00Yeah.
17:00...and commuting every day to work, to Hatton Garden.
17:03I don't know what became of the business, but it seems to have been a sort of unqualified success so
17:08far.
17:17They seem really happy at the moment in terms of everything we've been hearing.
17:22There's no reason to suspect anything might be amiss.
17:25But, you know, I know that at some point, Samuel killed himself.
17:34I know there was a robbery.
17:36But, yeah, I definitely want to try and find out more about that and about him.
17:48Daniel knows his great-grandfather's business, Gershon Brothers, was robbed sometime in the 1930s.
17:56Back in Hatton Garden, he's looking online to see if he can find out what happened.
18:03Search.
18:08Night raid on jewellers.
18:12Safe ripped open.
18:14Missing.
18:15Yeah, I mean, it was like a... there was a heist.
18:18Made the papers up and down the country.
18:21February 1936.
18:23Jewels were stolen from a safe in the premises of Mrs. Gershon Brothers' jewellers in Hatton Garden's EC on Monday
18:31night.
18:31On the floor were crowbars and the safe had been cut open.
18:35Wow.
18:37The majority of missing articles are mounted jewellery such as rings, necklaces and brooches.
18:44It never sounded this dramatic when it was being recounted before.
18:47It was just like, oh, yeah, some stuff was dark.
18:49Like, there was a robbery.
18:49But there was nothing about, like, there being the papers being all over it or, you know, it being a
18:55team of people cutting open a safe.
18:57You know, that's news.
19:00I mean, I would love to find out what happened and if they ever caught anyone.
19:04It was a much bigger deal than I thought that it had been.
19:13The robbery of Gershon Brothers was investigated by the police.
19:18To learn about the case, Daniel's meeting criminologist Dick Hobbs.
19:23Lovely to meet you.
19:2322.
19:24Here we are.
19:25Let's have a look.
19:26Lead the way.
19:26Thank you so much.
19:30This is the scene of the crime.
19:32Wow.
19:33This is where it was.
19:35And up here is the actual office where your great-grandfather had his business.
19:43Gershon.
19:44Unbelievable.
19:49There he is.
19:51As you can see, it's a pretty small space.
19:53There's even a safe here.
19:55Yeah.
19:57As there would have been.
19:59I was mad to think he was in this room almost a hundred years ago.
20:05You talk about a robbery that on today's money.
20:08Yeah.
20:08You're talking about a quarter of a million, a quarter of a million pound robbery.
20:13So this isn't, it's not petty crime.
20:15That's, that's a massive amount.
20:16I've got the file here.
20:19But what's crucial when we, when we look at this case is there's absolutely no evidence
20:23as to how the perpetrators got into the building.
20:28So there's no break-ins.
20:30There's no broken windows.
20:31There's no false doors outside.
20:34Right.
20:35So that becomes an ongoing problem in the investigation of this, of this particular crime.
20:40But if you look at the Hatton Garden heist of just a few years ago, just over the road,
20:44there was no sign of breaking and entering into that building either.
20:48Right.
20:49But this is the conclusion that the police came to.
20:52Okay.
20:54There was every reason to believe that the allegation of office breaking and larceny was bogus.
21:00And possibly put forward for the purposes of a fraudulent insurance claim.
21:06Under the circumstances no crime was recorded.
21:10Hm.
21:12Wow.
21:14The police have decided that, that this is a bogus robbery.
21:18Yeah.
21:19But they've not got enough evidence to take proceedings against the Gershens.
21:24Right.
21:25For, for fraud.
21:26From a police point of view the, the Gershens had a bit of previous here.
21:30And you can see if you read.
21:32Okay, yeah.
21:34An identical case of office breaking occurred at these premises on the night of 20th of March 1922.
21:41Property valued at £9,000 was stolen.
21:44And the claim was eventually settled.
21:47Um, a further successful claim for £1,855 was made by Edward Gershon in 1932.
21:55So that would be Sam's brother, Edward.
21:58Right.
21:59So yeah, they've, look up, this is, they've got a bit of history.
22:03The Gershens have been in dispute with the insurance companies three times in a 15 year period.
22:07Yeah.
22:07So, the police were definitely, um, suspicious that it could have been an inside job of some kind.
22:15But it's worth pointing out that crime in Hatton Garden was not unusual.
22:20Right.
22:20But in terms of the, the way the police are, are dealing with the Gershens at this point,
22:25if, if you look at this piece, this paragraph here, I think it's from police informants.
22:32Dear Sir, one hopes that the Criminal Investigation Department is taking into account the hypothesis
22:38that Gershon committed the robbery himself.
22:41In general terms, um, that he is a Jew.
22:47And that Jews are so frequently responsible for the bringing down of their own business premises
22:53and theft so-called committed in their offices.
22:57There's, there's a lot to dig into in that one sentence.
23:00Um, um, I guess it, it absolutely was the time, but it is also still very jarring to, um,
23:07see, see him being a Jew to be taken as, as a piece of evidence in itself is, is, is,
23:14yeah.
23:14But that, that might help to explain why the police had decided that it was bogus.
23:21Yeah.
23:23In 1930s Britain, as in the rest of Europe, hostility towards Jews was on the rise.
23:30Oswald Mosley's fascist party embraced an increasingly Nazi style of anti-Semitism.
23:37In 1936, the year of the Gershon Robbery, this erupted into violence in London,
23:44when fascists clashed with anti-fascist demonstrators
23:48in what became known as the Battle of Cable Street.
23:52My great-grandfather Sam, is there any, any news on what's happening to him in all this?
23:58Well, here's a, a newspaper report featuring a photograph.
24:03Whoa.
24:07Wow.
24:10That's an amazing photo.
24:12That's not in the family albums.
24:15Mr. Samuel Gershon fainted on learning that thieves had cut open a safe and stolen jewellery.
24:20Wow.
24:21So the press photographer was there outside?
24:23Yeah, that's right, there were photographers there on the day.
24:27There's another article here which, er, explains what's happened.
24:32Oh, wow.
24:34Robbed jeweller too ill to talk.
24:37Mr. Samuel Gershon, jeweller and diamond expert, has been lying ill in his home.
24:42For three days, detectives have been waiting to interview Mr. Gershon,
24:45but he was still too ill to see the police.
24:47I think one of the things worth saying here is that part of the context of the robbery was that
24:55the Gershons were already in debt for approximately the same amount of money that was stolen.
25:00Right, funny that, yeah.
25:02So, if you're looking for a motive, that could be the motive, if, if that's what happened.
25:07But to hear that the police were not taking this seriously.
25:11Right.
25:12And the suggestion that the insurance company weren't going to pay out, that's going to add to the pressure that
25:17Samuel was under.
25:18Yeah.
25:19And, and especially because of the intense media scrutiny that was also now a, a factor in his life.
25:28Yes.
25:30I mean, what do you think?
25:31Do you, do you think, do you think that's, that, that, do you think that Sam was, was faking that
25:35when he fainted?
25:37I mean, I suppose I worry because I, I know that Sam took his own life and so that makes
25:48me wonder if that was, you know, guilt.
25:53But by the same token, it could just have been that, you know, once this is written about you and
25:58once there is this kind of speculation about you,
26:00he was probably going, my livelihood's over.
26:04You know, the, the everything he's worked for and that his father had worked for as well, has sort of
26:08been, you know, destroyed pretty quickly, potentially.
26:13His, his death was reported and there may be something that, that you can look at to, to answer some
26:19of those questions.
26:19Okay.
26:20Yeah.
26:21I would definitely like to do that because he's sort of the, still the one person that I feel like
26:25I've, I've seen pictures of him and I've seen his signature,
26:29but I feel like his is the one voice that I haven't quite heard yet in all this.
26:41There are a lot of details around the, the robbery of my great granddad's business that are a little bit
26:50suspect.
26:52No forced entry on the door, the amount of debt they were in and the prior insurance claims over the
26:59last sort of 15 years.
27:01I tend to think that Sam and his brother, maybe together, decided to try and defraud the insurance company by
27:12staging a robbery.
27:17Clearly, the effect that this one had on him was not good.
27:22So yeah, I want to know more about that.
27:27Daniel's great grandfather, Samuel, died near Oldbury Common in Hertfordshire.
27:34To find out what happened, Daniel's come here to meet historian Alison Haggart.
27:40Hi Dan, lovely to meet you.
27:41You too.
27:43And one of the things we found is the coroner officer's report, which details the basic details about his death.
27:51Yes, thank you.
27:53When, oh sorry, 8th of July, right.
27:56So that was about five months after the robbery.
27:59After the robbery.
28:00Named Samuel Gershon, died in a motor car on Oldbury Common at 7.40pm.
28:08If any known illness or injury existed before death, state, if possible, the nature of it and its duration.
28:15There was suffering from shock for about 14 days in February 1936.
28:21So I had heard that he had been unable to talk to the police for three days, but it's interesting
28:27to see it.
28:27Obviously that state sort of lasted in some form for another, for 14 days total.
28:33And there was a witness statement from Samuel's brother, Edward.
28:36Oh right.
28:37As you can see.
28:38It's very difficult to read.
28:40Yeah.
28:40So we have done a transcript there for you.
28:42Oh great, thank you.
28:48Edward's witness statement.
28:50The diamond business had been burgled in February.
28:53There was a bankruptcy petition on the file against the firm which has been held over a pending settlement of
28:59the insurance company.
29:00He has been very worried since February.
29:03He told his wife he had a meeting of his firm's creditors to attend.
29:07He was wonderfully happy at home that he signed.
29:13Wow.
29:15What does the bankruptcy petition, what does all that mean?
29:19He will be waiting to see whether the insurance company is going to pay up.
29:23Oh okay.
29:24Otherwise it might lead to bankruptcy.
29:26Right, okay.
29:27Every single line is a bullet point of essential information apart from he was wonderfully happy at home.
29:36Yeah.
29:37Which really stands out.
29:39Very striking isn't it?
29:40Yeah.
29:41I think, you know, 1930s, my man would have been very much seen as a provider and a protector of
29:46his family.
29:47So anything that threatened that would have been, you know, very, very stressful.
29:50Yeah.
29:52I feel like it should make a difference to me whether he was innocent or guilty of this.
29:56But I still feel sorry for him just because he, you know, anyone in the wrong situation can get themselves
30:04feeling like they've been backed into a corner.
30:08And that's, you know, I find it hard to be angry at somebody for that.
30:18We did find one other document in the report.
30:22There was actually a suicide note which was found on the body in a handwritten notebook.
30:29So I don't know if you want to read that, but if you do, perhaps you'd, you know, want to
30:32go off and perhaps read it on your own.
30:34Yeah.
30:34Thank you very much.
30:36Yeah.
30:36I definitely do want to read it.
30:59Dole Darling is how he starts the note.
31:03So that was his name for my great grandmother.
31:08I cannot face bankruptcy after 22 years of trading.
31:13So I'm taking the coward's way out.
31:16But I can assure you, my angel.
31:19Oh.
31:23Hmm.
31:25But I can assure you, my angel, to leave a girl like you is more than a wrench.
31:29I worship and adore you.
31:35The loveliest, truest and noblest wife and companion and comforter, you have been to me in my trouble.
31:46It's, it's, it's, it's so funny to feel this connection to somebody that you don't know and just in, in
31:53how much he loves his wife.
31:57You know, the way he says things is, is not dissimilar to some things I would say and things I
32:05might call people.
32:08You have given me 15 years of happiness in our married life and we have been blessed with two darling
32:13girls.
32:14But I can't take worry as you know.
32:22And these last five months have pulled me down.
32:27You just want to sort of reach into the past and just go like, whatever you're going through, it, it,
32:33you have so much to offer the people who are around you still.
32:40They still would all have loved you.
32:44I don't want to go, but I'm afraid of the future.
32:48God keep you all well, have no regrets.
32:52You have been more than marvelous.
32:54I love you darling.
32:55Don't fret or grieve, but just give me a thought sometimes.
33:00Your loving and heartbroken husband, Nukes, which I suppose is his nickname.
33:12It's so sad that he was, that it was just like, you know, everything in, everything in one part of
33:21his life was great.
33:22He, he seemed so happy.
33:24He really does seem so happy at home.
33:31And it's so sad that whatever was going on in the other half of his life has completely overwhelmed that.
33:44And talking about worry, like, you know, I, I, I worry a lot and I have, you know, I, I,
33:54I, I sort of have a lot of anxiety and, and, and can really get lost in that sometimes.
34:01And it's sad to think of that getting so bad for him that he had to do this.
34:10But the overwhelming sense of anything is just like how much he loved Ray.
34:18All I can think of now is, like, what this would have done to Ray and Pat, my, my grandmother.
34:35To find out what happened after Samuel's death, Daniel has come back to Southend to meet Alan Dean again.
34:46I've got some documents that I think it's important for you to see.
34:50This one here is from the Daily Express.
34:52Oh, right.
34:54Robbed jewel man, dead in car, diary notes to wife.
34:58At this time, 1936, suicide was still very much a taboo, but also easily to become sensationalized by the press.
35:10Right.
35:10So this really gives you a sense of the scandal that was going to impact on the family.
35:17Wow.
35:19I've got another document here.
35:21Oh.
35:22Huh.
35:23Yes.
35:25Gresham, change name, it says on the front.
35:30Oh.
35:31I, the undersigned Ray Diana Gresham, do hereby renounce and abandon the name of Rachel Dinah Gershon,
35:39and in lieu thereof assume the name of Ray Diana Gresham.
35:44Wow.
35:46Um, this document is dated the 29th of July, 1936.
35:50So that is just three weeks after Samuel killed himself.
35:55That is, that is fast moving.
35:59It does make sense of the sort of, the mystery of when the name changed from Gershon to Gresham happened,
36:07and assumed it was sort of more to do with anglicizing to, to hide our Jewishness.
36:14But actually it was just to try and turn over a new leaf and, and outrun this scandal.
36:22I was aware that he had killed himself, but again, the, the, the, no idea the, the, the sort of,
36:30the lengths that it was reported on,
36:32or the, the wide reach of the story, that's all complete news.
36:36I don't know, I think that must be testament to some really extraordinary, um, shielding work going on from,
36:44from, from Ray to protect her daughters and then, the, her daughters to protect my mum.
36:52Over a year after Samuel's death, the insurance claim that had been made following the Gershon robbery was settled.
37:04Sam's death was, you know, the act of a man in a, in a situation that he found too desperate
37:11to, to contemplate anymore.
37:13Ray picked herself up and moved on with her life.
37:18I've, I've always been surrounded by strong women in my life.
37:24And, and it's fascinating and exciting to find that there was, maybe the strongest of all of them,
37:31was this woman I knew almost nothing about.
37:34Um, who really, you know, Ray really set the tone and paved the way and allowed everybody to come after
37:41her,
37:41to, to have that same strength by, by, you know, absorbing so much of the damage of this event.
37:47And, and sort of choosing to bear that burden herself.
37:55As much as this is about the tragedy and the extreme fallibility of one of my male ancestors,
38:03it's also the story of the, the triumph of all the women that followed him.
38:19Daniel's father, Alan, grew up in County Down, Northern Ireland.
38:24Daniel's now heading to the family hometown of Banbridge, 30 miles outside Belfast.
38:29It's very nice to be here.
38:31It's very nice to be, about to find out more about my dad's side of the family,
38:35because I don't know very much.
38:38I had a great, great uncle, Ernie, who went off in the First World War.
38:44When I did a film called My Boy Jack that was all set in the First World War,
38:48I kept a picture of him in my trailer, um, as just a sort of little, you know,
38:54personal kind of connection to the period.
38:57And I believe he had three brothers, so there were four of them that went off together.
39:03But, er, yeah, I don't know if they all came back, if none came back.
39:07Um, or what, certainly what their experiences were out there, I have no idea.
39:12My auntie Linda, she is a repository of lots of family information,
39:16so I think she'll be a very good starting point.
39:20Daniel's aunt Linda now lives just outside Banbridge,
39:23a few miles from her childhood home.
39:27Hey! Hello! Hello! Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello!
39:32Great to see you! Great to see you!
39:35Thank you so much for doing this!
39:37Right, come in, yes, yes, come ahead.
39:39Here it is now, isn't it?
39:41It sort of is, yeah.
39:43Daniel, I've looked at a few photographs for you.
39:45Oh, yes, please.
39:46So, erm, I'm going to start off with this one here.
39:48Oh, wow.
39:49Which shows you as a very young baby, with Granny Elsie.
39:52Er, trying to eat her face.
39:54Trying to eat her face.
39:55Do you recognise this lady?
39:58Is that... is that Granny Elsie's mum?
40:01Yeah. And this is a photograph of you with...
40:04Oh, wow! My great-grandmother, yeah.
40:07That's right.
40:08Her first name was Florence.
40:11But all members of her family always called her Flo.
40:14Okay.
40:15I didn't know that I'd met her.
40:16I'm really glad that I met her.
40:17Oh, yeah.
40:17Even if I don't have a memory of her,
40:18I'm really glad that we did.
40:20Yeah, you did.
40:20This one here is interesting,
40:23because this one shows...
40:25Oh, wow.
40:26Flo's mummy and daddy.
40:28So, Elizabeth and Tommy are your great-great-grandmother and grandfather.
40:35Wow.
40:36Yeah.
40:37This is a photograph of your great-great-uncle, Ernie.
40:42Wow.
40:43He was very handsome, wasn't he?
40:44He was, wasn't he?
40:45Yeah.
40:45Ernie McDowell.
40:46And he was Flo's brother.
40:49Right.
40:50She had four brothers who all served in World War I.
40:56This is your great-great-uncle, Jimmy.
40:59Jimmy, okay.
41:00Was the eldest son.
41:02And this is Joe.
41:05Oh, okay.
41:06So this is your great-great-uncle, Joe.
41:08Right.
41:09And that's Edmund.
41:11Edmund.
41:11He was the youngest of the boys.
41:14Huh.
41:14And that's Ernie.
41:16And that's Ernie.
41:18That's amazing.
41:21I do have something here,
41:24which I think you might find very, very interesting.
41:30I think I would, judging by what's on the envelope.
41:33Yeah.
41:33Original letters.
41:35Yeah.
41:35These letters, Daniel, are from your great-great-uncle, Ernie.
41:41Oh, wow.
41:42As I'm going to be very, very careful with this.
41:45Make sure I've got it all.
41:47These have been in the family for a very long time.
41:53Wow.
41:53They were given to your great-granny Flo.
41:59And she looked after them and treasured them.
42:02Yeah.
42:02Treasured them dearly for many years.
42:08I'm so honoured to even be touching these.
42:12Oh, well, thank you so much, Linda.
42:14You are very, you are very, very welcome.
42:17That's just amazing.
42:17And it's just a privilege to be able to pass them on to you, Daniel.
42:26Daniel's great-great-grandparents, Thomas and Elizabeth McDowall, had ten children.
42:32The youngest was Daniel's great-grandmother, Flo.
42:36Four of her brothers, Jimmy, Joe, Ernie and Edmund, served in the First World War.
42:44In Belfast, Daniel is reading his great-great-uncle Ernie's letters.
42:51Dear Mother, I am writing an answer to your kind and welcome letter, which I received all right.
42:58We have snow lying on the ground here, as it is very cold.
43:03But don't think I'd be starving, for I have three blankets to be on at night, so I am not
43:09so bad.
43:11Just the fact that he wants him to know, like, you know, I'm fed and I'm warm.
43:15And it's not as bad as you probably think it is.
43:18Even though I'm sure it was.
43:20This is about all I have to say at present, from your loving son, Ernie, to my dear mother and
43:25father.
43:27So he's written in a little X over all the girls' names.
43:31Annie, Sissy, Mother and Flo.
43:33My great-grandmother.
43:35It's extraordinary to see the real Ernie and get to know him a little bit through these letters.
43:44This one is to Ernest, from his mother.
43:49It made me very happy to see that you are well home.
43:52I have got no more word from Joe yet.
43:55And Jim is not out of hospital, as he had...
43:58Whoa!
44:01As he had...
44:01This is very bluntly phrased.
44:05Jim is not out of hospital, as he has had to get a bit of shell took out of his
44:08head.
44:10So that's Ernie's brothers.
44:13But I hope the Lord will bring you all together once more to the same old home.
44:18To the same loving mother that you left behind.
44:23Now.
44:26I didn't expect to hear my great-great-grandmother's voice in these letters.
44:31I'm trying to work out who this one's from, because there's a lot of mentions of Ernie in it.
44:36And this is sent from Bambridge, September 2nd, 1914.
44:41My dear Ernie, my heart was sore when I had to come into the house.
44:47But someday we will give them all a good day when we are getting married, won't we love?
44:52From your ever-loving sweetheart.
44:56Oh, hold on.
44:59Jeannie.
45:01Wow!
45:05Someone was very keen on Ernie.
45:09That's a great letter.
45:10I mean, it's just willing this to come true by writing it.
45:14So this is another letter.
45:17From Jeannie.
45:18Again.
45:19No one can say to you, Ernie, that you are going with a flirt for...
45:25She's very funny, Jeannie.
45:28No one can say to you, Ernie, that you are going with a flirt for I love you, Ernie, with
45:32all my heart.
45:33And will till death do us part.
45:35Still just...
45:38So in love with him.
45:41I want to find out...
45:44I want to find out what happened to all the brothers, if possible.
45:49And...
45:50I'd like to know more about him and Jeannie.
45:53Because they seem sweet.
45:56And I wonder if they ever got to marry.
45:59I really hope they did, based on those layers.
46:06To find out what more of the letters can reveal...
46:09Daniel's meeting First World War historian, Jessica Meyer.
46:13Nice to meet you.
46:14Thank you so much for coming and talking to me today.
46:16Pleasure.
46:16Awesome. Shall we?
46:17Shall we?
46:19OK.
46:21Here we go.
46:22So, these are the letters from my great, great uncle, Ernie.
46:27There's a huge amount of personality to these letters, which is really wonderful.
46:33Collections of letters like this aren't actually that uncommon.
46:35Because this is the first generation of working class young men and young women as well.
46:42For whom education had been compulsory up to the age of 14.
46:45So they're literate.
46:46And the war is...
46:48Is a point at which letter writing sort of takes off.
46:52They're not just setting letters, they're sending parcels.
46:54The second parcel you sent me came in nice time.
46:58I was sitting in a dugout and I hadn't had a smoke and wasn't very well pleased with the world
47:03in general.
47:04Oh, man.
47:05When a fellow brought me your parcel and I could have jumped with joy.
47:13During the First World War, parcels and letters from home were a vital morale booster.
47:19Regarded to be as important to soldiers' welfare as food and supplies.
47:25Two billion letters and over a hundred million parcels were sent during the course of the war.
47:31With letters taken just two or three days to reach the Western Front.
47:35So the date on this first letter is the 9th of October, 1914.
47:40So that's incredibly early into the war.
47:44Yes. When war breaks out in 1914.
47:46He's in the reserves.
47:48And the reserves are there to be mobilised very, very quickly.
47:53That is why so early in the war.
47:55Ernie is then sent overseas.
47:58But the records of his military service have been lost.
48:01So most of what we know about his service is from these letters.
48:06This is a much more scrappy piece of paper that is found somewhere.
48:10Dear Mother, I am writing you this letter to let you know that I am in England.
48:14And I am in hospital in Newcastle on Tyne with my feet.
48:17They were frostbitten.
48:18That first winter was cold and wet and an awful lot of men got frostbite.
48:24He recovers from frostbite.
48:25He goes home for a period of leave to recuperate and then is sent back to his unit.
48:31And then if you take a look at this.
48:35You are wanting to know what part of my leg I got wounded on.
48:39Well, it is the calf of my leg.
48:41It went through the muscle and missed the shin bone by a third of an inch.
48:46Wow.
48:46But I will tell you all about that next Saturday.
48:50Oh, fun next Saturday.
48:51This is all at present, dear Mother, from your loving son.
48:54So yeah, he's had frostbite now and he's now been shot in the leg.
48:59Yes.
49:00It would appear interestingly enough that when he gets that gunshot wound
49:03that he encounters Joe who helps him back to the regimental aid post.
49:08Wow.
49:09And if you look at this.
49:11I wish Joe was home for he is a good fellow.
49:14I was so very sorry when he left me in the dressing station.
49:18It was dark when he was carrying me.
49:20He had to jump backwards across a drain with me on his back.
49:24I thought he would have fell in but he didn't.
49:26And he got himself gathered all right.
49:29Wow.
49:29It's not entirely clear whether they were in the same unit
49:32but they were both serving in the same regiment.
49:35Yeah, it gives you a real sense of, you know, yeah,
49:38brothers looking out for each other in a very tough situation.
49:44We've got a letter from Ernest's mother, your great-great-grandmother,
49:49which is what makes this collection really quite special.
49:51And then the other thing we have, which is really unusual,
49:53these letters from Jeannie.
49:54Yeah.
49:55Which are lovely.
49:56They're so passionate.
49:57I love them. They really are.
49:58They're just like old, what I imagine love letters to be.
50:01I love you all the time.
50:04I love you only with a love that will never die.
50:08So, even in the midst of war, life goes on.
50:13Love carries on.
50:14Yeah.
50:14Um, in very difficult circumstances.
50:18It is amazing.
50:20This is the last dated letter that we have.
50:25The latest date that we have a letter from.
50:29The 28th of May, 1916.
50:30My dear mother and father, I am writing you these few lines, hoping they will find you all well.
50:35From your loving son, Ernie, to my dear mother and father, bye-bye.
50:41And tell Flo I don't forget, tell Flo I don't forget about the halfpenny I owe her.
50:45But then it's great that he's still, like, remembering a debt to his youngest sister.
50:51He's written so regularly for nearly two years.
50:58And then they just stop.
51:00And then they just stop.
51:01Oh dear.
51:03That doesn't bode well.
51:12Back in his family's hometown of Banbridge, Daniel hopes he can discover what happened to his great-great uncle Ernie
51:19and his brothers.
51:22It's hard to believe that someone would just stop writing halfway through a war.
51:28Especially somebody who seems so dedicated to keeping in touch with all of his family.
51:34I imagine that he might have, you know, died in combat.
51:45Oh.
51:46Oh, okay, this is a roll of honour.
51:50To the glory of God and in proud and loving memory of all the following men from this parish who,
51:56in response to the call of their king and country, laid down their lives in the Great War, 1914 to
52:021919.
52:09Yeah.
52:11There's Ernie.
52:14Ernest McDowell.
52:17So, none of the other brothers are there, though.
52:22So, I assume that means Ernie was the only one who, who got killed.
52:34To find out more about Ernie and his brothers, Daniel is meeting genealogist Fiona Fitzsimons.
52:42I've learned that Ernie did in fact die during the war.
52:47Do you know anything about the circumstances of his death?
52:52This is a letter written by somebody who was there with Ernie at the moment that he died.
52:57Oh.
52:57And he sent it to your great-great-grandmother.
52:59Oh, wow.
53:01It's very old.
53:03Yeah.
53:04This is from Rifleman James O'Brien.
53:08And it says,
53:09Mrs. McDowell,
53:12As far as I can tell you the truth about your dear beloved son,
53:19we were just after arriving in the trenches,
53:23and your boy and two more chaps from Belfast
53:26was going into a dugout to take off their packs
53:30when a shell landed.
53:35What about this one?
53:37Which killed the three of them.
53:40I'm very sorry to say none of them did live to say a word to anyone.
53:45I had thought that maybe he was dying in some big battle,
53:48but it was just a random shell.
53:52I think I am after telling you the very truth about all now,
53:56for which I am only too willing
53:59to give any broken-hearted mother.
54:04As I am...
54:05As I am the only son myself,
54:09and I know the way my own mother do feel.
54:12Yours, etc.
54:13James O'Brien.
54:17That's extraordinary.
54:20He definitely seems to want to reassure Elizabeth
54:24that Ernie didn't suffer.
54:27Hmm.
54:28Some of the particularly affecting letters
54:30that I read were from Ernie's girlfriend, Jeannie.
54:34And I was wondering, you know,
54:37she seemed pretty devoted to Ernie in all those letters.
54:40Mm-hm.
54:41So, do we know anything about what happened to her?
54:44We do.
54:45We found a record of what happened to Jeannie
54:47from the parish registers of this church.
54:51Marriage solemnized at the Church of the Holy Trinity.
54:57Oh, wow. So, yeah, they got married here.
55:00Mm-hm.
55:01Ernest McDowell and Jeannie Barlow, is that?
55:04Barlow.
55:04Barlow.
55:05And look at the date.
55:06February 9th?
55:0814th.
55:09February 14th.
55:09Oh!
55:10February 14th.
55:11February 14th, 1915.
55:14Surreal, sweethearts.
55:16It was while Ernie was on leave.
55:18He spent the greater part of 1915 in Ireland.
55:21Right.
55:21First of all, when he was recuperating from frostbite.
55:24And then, later on after, he was wounded and again was returned to Ireland.
55:28It does make me really happy that they were able to have that year together.
55:34And, yeah, were able to just be a young couple for a little while,
55:38before he had to go back off.
55:43Do you know what else happened to the brothers?
55:46Jimmy, the oldest, settled in Belfast.
55:49But the other two brothers who returned, Joseph and Edmund, settled here in Banbridge.
55:54Obviously, it's tragic to lose one son, any amount of children is, you know, I can't even imagine that.
56:02But I'm pleased for my great-great-grandmother that at least three of her sons came back.
56:19To have made a World War One film and, you know, played at being a soldier in the trenches,
56:24you know, I definitely feel a lot more connected to all those stories
56:29now that I've kind of learned what my own family went through.
56:33And suddenly realising why, out of all the brothers,
56:38Ernie's name was the one that made it down to me,
56:40because he was this son that went and didn't come back.
56:46To find Elizabeth's letters to Ernie
56:50just give such an insight into what it would have been like
56:54to have your children leave for the war.
56:58And just to find out how much love there is in my family,
57:06you know, a lot of very sad things have happened to various parts of my family.
57:11I can't be sad about it, because everyone was really loved.
57:17And ultimately, that means that the time they had on Earth,
57:21even if it ended prematurely and sadly, was, you know, was worth having.
57:38To be continued...
57:39To be continued...
57:56To be continued...
57:56To be continued...